A Portable Noncontact Profile Scanning System for Aircraft Assembly

Three-dimensional(3D)profile scanning plays a crucial role in the inspection of assembled large aircraft.In this paper,to achieve noncontact automatic measurements of the high-reflective profiles of large-scale curved parts and components,an automated noncontact system and method with high accuracy and high efficiency are presented.First,a hybrid 3D coordinate measurement system based on proximity sensors and cameras is proposed to obtain noncontact measurements while avoiding the influence of high reflection on the measurement accuracy.A hybrid measurement model that combines the one-dimensional distances measured by the proximity sensors and the 3D information obtained by cameras is proposed to determine high-accuracy 3D coordinates of the measured points.Then,a profile-driven 3D automated scanning method and strategy are designed to rapidly scan and reconstruct the profile within the effective range without scratching the profile or exceeding the measurement range of the proposed system.Finally,experiments and accuracy analyses are performed in situ on an assembled tailplane panel(approximately 1760 mm×460 mm).The automated scanning process is completed in a timeframe of 208s with an average error of less than 0.121 mm for profile reconstruction.Therefore,the proposed method is promising considering both the high accuracy and high efficiency requirements of profile inspections for large aircraft.

RESEARCH ON SONIC FATIGUE CALCULATION AND TEST FOR AIRCRAFT PANEL

The sonic fatigue life of the aluminium rectangular panel was calculated using the concise method[1], and the sonic fatigue test was conducted on progressive wave tube (PWT) test facility. A comparison was made between the results of calculation and test, and it shows reasonable agreement between these two results.

Robot trajectory planning for autonomous 3D reconstruction of cockpit in aircraft final assembly testing

The trend towards automation and intelligence in aircraft final assembly testing has led to a new demand for autonomous perception of unknown cockpit operation scenes in robotic collaborative airborne system testing.To address this demand,a robotic automated 3D reconstruction cell which enables to autonomously plan the robot end-camera’s trajectory is developed for image acquisition and 3D modeling of the cockpit operation scene.A continuous viewpoint path planning algorithm is proposed that incorporates both 3D reconstruction quality and robot path quality into optimization process.Smoothness metrics for viewpoint position paths and orientation paths are introduced together for the first time in 3D reconstruction.To ensure safe and effective movement,two spatial constraints,Domain of View Admissible Position(DVAP)and Domain of View Admissible Orientation(DVAO),are implemented to account for robot reachability and collision avoidance.By using diffeomorphism mapping,the orientation path is transformed into 3D,consistent with the position path.Both orientation and position paths can be optimized in a unified framework to maximize the gain of reconstruction quality and path smoothness within DVAP and DVAO.The reconstruction cell is capable of automatic data acquisition and fine scene modeling,using the generated robot C-space trajectory.Simulation and physical scene experiments have confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed method to achieve highprecision 3D reconstruction while optimizing robot motion quality.